Work Text:
The efficiency in which the two of you work is more machine than man. He works with swift, practiced movements, opening the gas pipe to fuel the bunsen fire with one hand, and stirring a basic solution with the other. You work with equal precision, correcting his formulas with ease and passing him the next component of the Electro solution without him having to ask. He gives you a small, secretive smile, though there was no reason for him to hide. Still, he gives this smile just to you because it was made just for you.
The way he has so much room, yet still chooses to brush up against you as he walks past, fingers gently brushing down the length of your arm is more man than machine; too caught up in his own affection for others that his kindness becomes the default. There is this duality to Peter, not only because of his dual-identity, but also because his love and his cleverness are placed so closely to one another, they inevitably morph together at times. He is a brilliant scientist in one moment and a fierce protector and lover in another, especially when he works in such close proximity to you. It does nothing but selfishly boost your ego that even now, you distract him and he thinks of you as he dedicates his time to someone else.
Technically, it’s him, but from another universe. This boy, from this parallel place, so closely resembles your own Peter in his grief that it’s painful to look at his face. It’s only when this Peter’s girl comes to comfort him can you stand to watch again. She actually doesn’t resemble you at all, except in the way she stares at him, and in turn, the way he stares back. It comes to you then that you are not the same person, but you play the same role in both Peters’ lives.
The older Peter doesn’t have anyone with him, not that that prevented him from telling you about her when you had approached, offering him water when he looked up.
After a quick thank you and a small pull from the bottle, he returned to work. You knew at once that you should return back to your Peter, but you stayed in fascination. Watching as he worked with a precision that didn’t require caution.
It was the beauty of your Peter’s hands and of his heart that first made you fall for him, both of which he was keen to show you the night you met. It’s in this Peter that you find that same deftness. He’s more practiced, more experienced than yours, but for the millionth time today, you’re surprised at how familiar this person feels. He’s not yours, since his face, voice and posture are different. Though the work of his hands and the work of his faith for people brings an ease and serenity: it seemed with every Peter Parker that existed in the multiverse, their compassion and their genius are absolute fixtures in their personality.
And when you met his gaze, you were rooted to the spot for a moment: Absolutely overwhelmed by how similar they were to the other boy’s across the room. The same boy that possesses the most beautiful eyes you’d ever seen. His, too, were very beautiful and it seemed these eyes held decades of loss in them as well. They softened the more that you stared, like he knew exactly what you were thinking.
Another box to check in the long list of absolute points that make up a Peter Parker: soft, beautiful eyes with the powerful ability to love and unravel you all in the same moment.
He probably caught you staring as soon as you began, but he was polite to allow you your time to look and satisfy the curiosity.
He smiled a little bit. “May I help you with something?” He asked, the tone in his voice teasing, knowing.
Check off another box.
“Sorry, you just –”
“– remind me of someone?” He finished, the smile evolving from polite to a bit mischievous. “Yeah,” he went on, “You remind me of someone I know, too.”
Maybe your curiosity is an absolute point for the other yous that exist, too, because you asked, “Who?”
After another beat of silence, after the expression on his face changed once more, he answered, “Mary Jane.”
Then you said, “Your MJ.”
Finally, he settled for a comfortable, contented expression, like his thoughts were on the girl he loves back home. The quiet “yes” he gave you seemed to confirm your thoughts.
The silence that followed is comfortable, too. It made you feel like you were permitted to ask how he made it work with his girl, so you did.
That’s when he shrugged. “With lots of difficulty,” he said slowly as his hands continued to work over the titrated solution. “But it’s possible to have a life.”
Then he stopped there, keeping your gaze for a beat. And you knew what was missing from that sentence: it’s possible to have a life together, with him.
Back with your Peter, you smile, with teeth. Like the Peter you just left, he holds your gaze for a moment before smiling back: you think he knows what you’ve been talking about, but he is too polite to ask about it.
As a way of confirmation (and out of the selfish want of just wanting him), you take his lips against yours, swallowing him up, where he can just be yours for a moment.
The delight on his face when the kiss ends is reminiscent of the expression he had when you had done it the first time. You two have this shared knowledge, right now, that that feeling will never fade.
It compels you to kiss him again, so you do. And he gifts you with a soft caress of your cheek, his hands admiring your lovely face.
You pull back, but not very far, still ghosting over his lips. “I’m sorry I keep distracting you,” you say.
“I’m not,” he answers at once. “But I do need your help to finish this cure for Connors.”
And you’re bashful, because every other Peter and person in the room saw what just happened between you two. You’d like to think optimistically, that maybe none of them had watched, but you knew that Peter was always too curious for his own good. You put your focus back on the Midtown water bottle, both cheeks equally flushed.
Eventually, once every cure had been completed, and it’s been decided that the three Spider-Men would fight on the Statue of Liberty, you stand alone with him. He’s readying his web shooters and you’re fiddling with his Spider mask, worrying your lips with your teeth.
He notices, as is typical with him, and comes to take the mask from you. He holds your face in his hands, the familiar smooth scratch of his suit against skin. “I’ll be fine.”
You click your tongue, half convinced. “You always are,” you say regardless. “Kiss for good luck, anyway?”
His smile renews, and comes closer to you until he’s all right against your lips and the rest of him’s all over you: one hand to your face, thumb running circles over the swell of your cheekbone, the other right against your hip. He pulls you flush against him, properly covering every part of you with every part of him.
You’d never truly known what being beautiful was like until you were beheld by him. You thought that you did, but it inevitably became something different when he looked at you for the first time. It was like this now, as he sucks on your bottom lip, pulling you further in.
It happens synchronously, the “I love you”s after you pull apart.
You aren’t embarrassed anymore, knowing everyone saw. Instead, you approach the younger Peter, telling him quietly that you have faith in him, and that he’d get you back home.
He hugs you and though you didn’t expect it, you wrap your arms around him quickly, pressing tightly before it ends.
The eldest Peter only smiles when you come by, giving you a hug, too. “We’ll all be okay,” he says, and somehow, it’s most reassuring coming from him.
So you have no choice but to believe him.
All three Spider-Men hop through the portal Ned opened, running along the length of the wooden walkway, before they all split off in different directions. Your Spider-Man looks to you as he runs to the left with one other, thinking only of returning home with you. He gives you a wave before vanishing from the viewpoint of the portal.